Contests & Promotions

'Lo again all, it's been some time since I've set down in front of the terminal with the intent of typing up an article. As per usual, my main interest in Magic has been focused in on Type II (not because I like the format more, in theory, than Extended, it's just much more pervasive) and my deck choices have been pretty, please pardon the pun, standard.

), played around with R/W Slide, buried critters en masse with Mono Black, and so forth, but none of these decks exactly inspire the imagination, they're all typical, off the shelf stock models that win, but don't do it particularly creatively.

So the other evening I was reading older articles from the Dojo, looking for deck building inspiration, and I was reminded of one of the most sadistic, and proactive control decks ever built, Ponza.

For those who don't know, Ponza was initially a bastard relative to the more universally known Sligh, it relied on early game cheap burn, with land destruction in the mid, and nasty finishers that would kill your opponent in short order for the late. The original Ponza was basic Red, and it used Wildfire

It made me start to wonder, with all the wonky mana bases, and decks that hate land destruction in the current environment, might a Ponza-esque deck be viable again? My first attempt was to go that mono Red route again, but I found the main issue that kept creeping up was early game issues, burn can keep decks in check to a certain extent, but if you get a land destuction light hand, with just some burn, you're going to lose horrifically more often than not.

More importantly, Red by itself doesn't have a ´´the game's over´´ card like it used to, I know what you're thinking, this slot used to be filled by Wildfire

Looking down the list, it's fairly easy to see the comparison to Ponza, there's just enough land destruction to frustrate your opponent by stealing half of their colours, or to get an odd Coffers that sneaks out. Duress

fills a utility role. He can beat down effectively, he can by cycled when you need to draw, and he can give mono black nightmares with his recursive ability. This recursive ability also makes him an extremely nasty combo with Braids, as it gives her an alternate upkeep of 2BBB, discard a card during your upkeep.

Initially, I didn't have high hopes for the deck, I put it together on a whim and dragged it along with me to playtest, that playtesting showed the deck has some serious strength though, and can wreck utter havoc on an unprepared field.

While I'd thought that in theory it might get a few excellent draws that would punish the opponent, and auto-win, I had no idea how reliable the design would end up being. You never have problems finding red sources to fuel your land destruction, and the early game pressure factor is superb. This is an extremely proactive deck, and when it's running it can often feel unbeatable.

The main issue that it can run into is a deck that lays out too many early game threats, like U/G can, especially if they can go first. Smother

can kill the first card, but without it things can get ugly, especially if they can get a Mongrel/Wurm draw, because by the time you're blowing up their third land (assuming they went first) they've already got way too much heat out.

s in the SB, they're not necessary for a lot of matches, but against U/G and Sligh they're completely needed to alleviate the early game beats. Honestly, the initial reason I put them in was just to deal with the Phantom Centaur

, which otherwise gives this deck fits, but they've proven themselves serviceable time and time again by cleaning up the low casting cost stuff. I could even justify putting some of them in the MB, but as I said, it depends on what you're up against, in a Sligh and U/G heavy metagame they're probably better than Demon

were often too little by themselves anyhow. But I'd certainly respect an attempt to fit them in, despite the negative interaction with your creatures, they're a strong answer to a big rush.

Some matchups:

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Mono Black Control:

The ´´other´´ black deck in the environment is wrecked by your early game blitz, despite the pervasive 26 land version, it's still not enough because you can steal their removal, destroy their early lands, and lock them down with Braids, or frustrate them with recursive Gladiators.

Not getting out a turn 4 Braids against them hurts, but it's by no means a game ending kind of thing either, as you have a lot of good single card threats that demand Mutilation, as either Shade or Demon

In playtesting B/r Braids wins this match at least 2 out of 3 pre-sideboarding, and the percentage just gets better after boarding when you can bring in a trio of Scrying to try and head off any Echoes action if you fail to finish them off in the early game.

tokens should never be an issue. Scrying is nice because it can replenish your hand and protect you from Echoes.

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Blue-Green Madness:

There's no point in even bringing a deck to a Type II tourney these days unless it posts 50% against U/G, and that's just about what B/r Braids does. If you go first, you'll likely win, and it's impossible to stress how important that is for this match. You'll also likely win if they fail to lay a Mongrel on turn 2.

style deck. If your area hasn't gotten the Centaur/Counter maindeck version yet, you might be in for a treat, as this deck will wreck the older version.

In the match against the 8 counter version going first is a huge issue because of how much countermagic can kill your pace though. B/r Braids is a tempo deck first and foremost, and having it's first land destruction spell countered is enough to turn the tide in their favour, if they go first, chances are they're going to be able to get out UU for your attempted turn 3 Earth or Stone Rain

and Therapy in against U/G, but it just doesn't work unless you take out some of the land destruction (not a good idea, since the only way you're winning anyway is to prevent them from getting to 4 mana)

you can pull off wins through the sheer brute force of Paladin and Shade. The key is to learn what to name with Therapy, and to understand that you have to pace yourself in this match after boarding, as it's never pretty.

Surprisingly, Sligh hasn't been played much locally, mainly due to the difficulty in finding the ´´Touchdown Kitty´´. There are a few people who play it though, and the early game blitz can be very difficult to stop. The key thing to win in the pre-sideboarded match is to keep them from getting to 4 mana, and thus, keep them from getting 4 mana 7 damage hasted beats and flashed back Firebolt

Your best hope for winning is against the 8 fetchland versions, especially if they keep a hand with a couple of them, not realising what they're up against. Fetchlands are virtual land destruction spells for you, and sometimes you can win matches against Sligh simply by being able to Stone Rain

s seem like an obvious side out, but they're not, they're your largest creature, and can survive the cheap burn like Shades and Braids can't. After sideboarding your chances leap considerably, with an Engineered Plague

Just make sure to not take them too lightly, even with a Plague out, Sligh can still throw a lot of burn when it needs to, and keeping them from 4 mana, and 7/1 Trampling beats is still key.

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Slide:

Slide falls into the same pit that Mono Black does, it hates land destruction to the extreme, and is simply praying that none exists in the environment. Though Slide can cycle aggressively to find more land, it has a serious crutch in that often 50% of it's lands come into play tapped (Cycle Lands + Coliseum), a major liability against LD.

If they can manage to get a Rift out (which is more difficult than you might assume between Duress

and Fiend) you can have a more difficult time of it, but your land destruction can usually still steal half of their colours (red being the obvious best bet, since it allows uncouterable slaughtering of your troops via Slice and Dice

usually isn't neccessary in this match, since their creatures cost a lot of mana that they're not going to be able to afford. Therapy is solid gold, snatching Rift if they're approaching 2 mana, or Slide if they're approaching 3 mana.

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G/W (and G/W/r) Beats

G/W is being played on occasion by some of the good players in our area, so I feel it's worthy of mention. G/W is an aggressive, and dangerous deck pre-sideboard like U/G Madness is, but they don't have the benefit of counter-magic, which is 1 of the 2 reasons B/r hates Green (the other being the Phantom Centaur

. But it creates a large problem for itself that exists in G/W, but is insane against B/r, the issue is the use of fetchlands.

In a non land destruction environment fetchlands are wonderful, they thin your deck of land, and create consistency. Against a land destruction deck they're a major liability though. Each time you use one, you're virtually destroying a land for B/r, at the cost of 1 life. I can't stress enough how big this is, if an opponent starts off with one or two fetchlands, they're going to have a very hard time recovering from the early land destruction, because for each Stone Rain

doesn't hit you and negate the deck. That said, you still have to side out some of the land destruction, because if they get a lucky top deck the turn after you make them discard a Ground, you're going to want to reduce the number of worthless cards in your hand. The deck therefore turns more toward a black control style, with the idea being to establish control with Paladins zapping everything in sight long enough to get a win.

hating SB scheme is still in heavy flux though, it's a hard call to make concerning how much denial is enough, and how much land destruction it's appropriate to take out. Extensive playtesting is the only way to iron out these issues, and frankly, the G/W(/r) deck isn't being used much locally, so it's time I'm not willing to spend right now.

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Wake

As most people know by now, there are two versions of Wake, the Cunning

version is the harder match, but honestly, neither of them is in good shape against you.

Wake falls into several traps that other decks do; it uses fetchlands, it relies too much on counters which you can steal with denial spells, and it needs to play a high casting cost spell to win. All of these things conspire to make Wake a very bad deck against B/r Braids no matter what way you slice it.

unless you've already lost, the Scrying and single Therapy seem to be obvious changes.

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Clerics

Not much has been said about this archetype on the net yet, but it's seen a bit of play locally, and it's literally the nightmare match for this deck. Everything Clerics does is a direct negation of what B/r Braids is attempting to do.

The deck literally has answers for every question you can ask, and the only way to win is to get them in complete Braids lock, because otherwise they'll top deck any of the 30 cards in their deck that can single-handedly beat you, and win.

To win a game requires incredible luck, to win a match requires something akin to divine providence, if this deck is being played in your metagame at all extensively, don't even think about playing B/r Braids, because you'll lose horrifically.

, is that good? In fear of COP, no, but I don't think you have a realistic hope of winning this match without locking them out of land anyway, so stopping the card from hitting the table shouldn't be a high priority.

A better sideboarding scheme might exist, but I still don't think it'll likely be enough to make this match anything better than completely ugly.

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So that's B/r Braids in a nutshell. A few brief words on how to play the deck, and I'll end this article. The main thing to keep in mind with this deck is that it's a pure tempo deck, your optimal plays are disruption every turn for the first 5 turns of the game, at which point you take control of the match. Not many decks can take a Duress

(Mongrel being obvious, since it fuels counter-magic, and more beasties) but against most you'll want to just keep up the early game barrage, and take a few hits in the process. Remember, life is a resource, and so what if a Rootwalla

or Brushhopper is pounding you for 3 a turn for 4 or 5 turns? The important thing is to make sure the initial creature is all that they get, after you've destroyed the opponent's land, *then* worry about killing the pinger, and then win.

Playing this deck it's often easy to forget that it's a pure control deck, just not in the classic counter based format. Your job is to deny your opponent the opportunity to cast spells through land destruction and hand denial. And because of the fetchland mana bases, and lack of good counterspells it's incredibly dangerous in that regard. People didn't take this deck seriously when I first fielded it, but it's proven itself as a contender against the current Type II field, and I can't stress enough how fun it is to play.

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